Clone Wars Weekly Dispatch: Writer Henry Gilroy, 2

Last column we met Henry Gilroy, the Star Wars fan who one could say hit the jackpot. He is now the head story man for the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie and TV series. Of course, getting the job is only the first step. From there one
actually has to do it. In part two of this interview, Gilroy gives us
some insight into just setting everything up.

As any professional knows, when you work on a project like Star Wars there are things you can do and things you absolutely can’t.
You can’t suddenly have Anakin don blue tights and develop a weakness for kryptonite. You can
have him be in love with Padme. He must be a certain height, weight and
demeanor. Planets not only have specific names, but specific ways to
spell said (often-confusing) names.

Everything about the universe, or any other longstanding franchise for
that matter, is written down in a series of books called referred to as
the “bible.” Rumor has it the Star Wars is a gigantic and fearsome thing.
“Well, having read the Dark Horse comics for years and novels and guidebooks, I was already well versed in the Star Wars
universe,” says Gilroy. “Early on, George [Lucas] told us he didn't
want what had come before in the comics, games and novels to restrict
us creatively. We always tried to respect what had come before, but
really George has the last word on that stuff.
“So yes, to answer your question, I studied the bible intensively... and I ended up writing a 'series bible' for Clone Wars
that was about 60 pages long. I got to contribute to the bible you
might say, really I was just building on what came before and adding
new bits here and there.
“Nothing was developed except that George wanted it to take place
between Episode 2 and Episode 3 and he wanted it to have a stylized
'anime' look and feel,” says Gilroy. “That's all we had at the
beginning.”
That didn’t mean Gilroy, or director Dave Filoni,
were in the strapped into editorial straight jackets. If anything, it
sounds like Lucas gave them plenty of room to move inside his universe.
“We had several early meetings with George and he told us he was going to teach director Dave Filoni and I how to make Star Wars
and gave us direction for all the things the series could be. Dave and
I wanted to give Obi-Wan a replacement padawan for Anakin, who had been
made a knight and we suggested a female.
“George switched it up and said, ‘Make it Anakin who gets the padawan.’
He did that a lot, coming in with fresh ideas to twist it around. The
sky was the limit. We tried not to tread directly on the films, as
George had covered that material already. He encouraged us to do
different stuff and he made it clear that the previous Clone Wars
series, the Genndy series, on Cartoon Network was really just an
experiment and he wasn't involved with it very closely. So while we
used some visual ideas from it, it was not to impact any work on the
stories we were creating. We borrowed characters from the comics and
created new ones.”
There were other instructions from Lucas. Then again, it is his universe.
“George wanted the series to primarily focus around Anakin, Obi-Wan and
Ahsoka early on,” said Gilroy. “A big part of that was showing another
side to Anakin, that fun cocky Jedi hero of the galaxy who is thriving
in this environment. We get to see him be funny and charming and
likeable. Later on in the series Dave and I got to explore more Jedi
Council members, like Plo Koon and Kit Fisto as well as brand new
characters, new alien races, bounty hunters, heroes and villains of all
kinds.”
There still was one important thing Gilroy and company had to consider
though. They were starting with a pilot film, then moving on to over 20
episodes of a TV series. A veteran of both mediums, that meant some
changes when it came when moving from one to the other.
“The animated feature process tends to be more time consuming,
complicated and involve more steps than TV,” says Gilroy. “In
television, when you complete the final draft of the script, that is
usually what you end up producing on screen. In feature, once you
complete a final draft, that's just the beginning of the writing
process. George especially likes to keep on tweaking the story through
the pre-visualization phase as well as in editorial, where he adds
gags, dialogue, humor, and even massive action set pieces. Sometimes
he'll watch an episode and just decide he wants to tell the story a
different way and he will rewrite it in the editing room.
“The entire Clone Wars TV series has been written the
feature way, which has made it a challenge every step of the way;
albeit very worthwhile. It is by far the most cinematic animated series
on TV. It feels like a movie, every episode.”
NEXT COLUMN: We get down to the details of character development and more in the last part of this interview.Star Wars: The Clone Wars debuts on Cartoon Network on October 3rd.Clone Wars Weekly Dispatch: Writer Henry GilroyClone Wars Weekly Dispatch: Creating a New Clone WarsClone Wars Weekly Dispatch: From Big Screen to SmallClone Wars Weekly Dispatch: Director David FiloniMovie Review: Star Wars: Clone Wars